Most large ships contain miles of piping which serve the purposes of fresh water, sewage, and steam for heating and power. These pipes are normally routed close together in order to conserve shipboard space. As these pipes serve the various locations aboard the ship they take many 90.degree. turns from the main routing channels.
When a ship goes in for an overhaul or even minor repair work piping systems are often cut for rerouting or spliced to replace deteriorated pipe sections. When new sections are added this work necessarily requires the pipe ends to be prepared for a welding process. The butt welded pipe ends normally require the internal circumference of the pipe ends to be dressed to a specific degree to accept a consumable type weld backing ring, and the pipe ends are further dressed along an external circumference in a bevelled fashion to accept a filler welding material which completes the joining of the pipe ends together.
The prior art apparatus for performing the necessary machining operations on pipe ends has been too large to get into the many confined spaces of the closely routed piping systems aboard ships. Further, these prior art devices were not useable at all on pipe ends which terminate in a 90.degree. bend. In many instances it has been necessary to manually grind these pipe ends to the desired configurations for butt welding of the pipe ends.